Education and Development

Resource:  Dr. Darrell Furgason, “The Pathway to Excellence:  Developing a Biblical Perspective on All of Life,” World Report (Association of Christian Schools International)

Summary:  Christian educators must have a biblical worldview regarding all areas of life before they can pass that perspective on to their students and, thereby, achieve excellence in Christian education.

Report:  Dr. Darrell Furgason is concerned with the “intellectual mediocrity in Christian education.”  In this article, he describes an approach to education which will allow Christian teachers to achieve excellence by implementing a curriculum that “addresses and answers, from a biblical perspective, the questions of life in every area of society.”  First, he draws upon Romans 12:1-2 to point out the importance of promoting critical thinking skills which will help students “recognize ideas that are true and to distinguish them from those that are false.”  Second, he encourages Christian educators to help their students learn to identify and answer “the questions of life that confront all of us as human beings.”  In doing so, we want to cultivate in our students a hunger for truth leads them to actively seek out what is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, and of good report (Philippians 4:8).

Third, Dr. Furgason claims that Christian teachers must themselves learn to recognize and demolish “the many philosophical fortresses that influence and shape the society we live in” – including scientism, Marxism, relativism, postmodernism, and theological liberalism.  Finally, he points out the necessity of Christian educators personally holding, and teaching, a comprehensive biblical worldview.  As he states, many teachers in Christian schools have been educated in secular universities where they have not learned how to bring a biblical perspective to their subject matter.  In other words, they may be Christians in their hearts but not in their heads “in terms of the ideas one holds to be true.”  They must, therefore, make a deliberate effort to “recognize and replace ideas and paradigms they absorbed in their degree programs” so they are no longer held captive by the secular philosophies which shape our age.

While the article is written primarily for teachers in Christian schools, its principles can be a useful guide for Christian teachers in secular schools as well.

The article is available for download at http://www.acsi.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=CJb4t3dJ%2bMg%3d&tabid=714